Homebrew: Belgian Caramel Wit

December 10, 2013

We brewed a Belgian Caramel Wit to have ready for Thanksgiving. It was a Brewer’s Best extract kit that was available from the local homebrew store. We wanted a homebrew that wouldn’t take too long to be ready and that was an easy drinking beer most people would like.

Grains used for this recipe were 12 ounces of crushed 2-row pale malt, 12 ounces of flaked wheat, 6 ounces crushed Munich, and 6 ounces crushed caramel 30L. After we heated 1.25 gallons of water to 155°F, we steeped the grains for 45 minutes. We placed the grain bag in a strainer over the pot after steeping and poured a half gallon of warm water over the grains to rinse into the wort. When it was finished draining, we discarded the grains, added three quarters of a gallon of warm water to the pot, and brought the mixture to boiling.

Once boiling, we turned off the heat and added 3.3 pounds of pilsen light LME. We continuously stirred the malt to prevent boil over. After the malt was dissolved, we returned the wort to a boil. Once a good rolling boil was established, we added 1 ounce of German Hersbrucker hops to boil for 45 minutes. After 30 minutes of boiling, we added two pounds Bavarian wheat DME, one pound blonde Belgian candi syrup, and Whirlfloc for the remaining 15 minutes of boil time.

When the boil time finished, we removed the pot from the heat and placed it in an ice bath to cool down to 80°F. This took about 30 minutes. The cooled wort was poured into a 6 gallon carboy and cool water was added to bring the volume to 5 gallons. We poured the wort through a strainer to help prevent sludge from entering the carboy. We stirred the wort to mix well with the added water, and then checked the specific gravity.

We pitched a dry yeast (Saf-brew T58) directly into the carboy and stirred the wort so it was well mixed. Our brew was stored in a temperature controlled (72°F) chest freezer.

We used primary and secondary fermentation for this brew. We left the beer in the primary fermentor for seven days, and then racked to a secondary. The beer was in the secondary for 14 days before bottling. We bottled 53 12-ounce bottles of beer. This beer seemed to peak after three months in the bottles.